Bruno in Brussels - EU unplugged » European Commissionhttp://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/bruno-in-brussels-eu-unplugged
Bruno in Brussels - EU unpluggedWed, 19 Mar 2014 16:01:38 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the next president of the European Commission?http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/bruno-in-brussels-eu-unplugged/brusselsbruno/691/helle-thorning-schmidt-the-next-president-of-the-european-commission/
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/bruno-in-brussels-eu-unplugged/brusselsbruno/691/helle-thorning-schmidt-the-next-president-of-the-european-commission/#commentsFri, 21 Feb 2014 16:54:14 +0000Bruno Waterfieldhttp://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/bruno-in-brussels-eu-unplugged/?p=691It’s really far too early to say, but I have currently got my money on Helle Thorning-Schmidt to be the next president of the European Commission when the job becomes vacant this autumn.

David Cameron, Helle Thorning-Schmidt and Barack Obama take a 'selfie' Photo: ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP

She’s currently the prime minister of Denmark but her political sell-by-date is long past making her about ripe to be chosen for the top Brussels job this summer.

If the centre-right, Christian Democrat, European People’s Party do best their candidate will take the post. The favourite is currently Jean-Claude Juncker, the jaded former prime minister of Luxembourg.

In the extremely unlikely event the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group get most seats, Guy Verhofstadt, the uber-Federalist former prime minister of Belgium will take the post.

And so on and so on.

The idea of the spitzenkandidaten or chief candidates, as they are known in this rarefied city, is both desperate and dishonest.

Desperate because it is only within the Brussels bubble or EU-funded public life that you find people who believe that a contest between Mr Schulz versus Mr Juncker or Mr Verhofstadt will galvanise Europe’s voters.

Most voters will find this bizarre ersatz contest, a synthetic substitute for a real political fight, baffling or just plain annoying, further confirmation of the remote, alien life as it is lived on planet EU.

The idea is dishonest because the Lisbon Treaty says absolutely nothing about voters, MEPs or parliament’s fake (but generously, publicly funded) political parties choosing the next president of the commission.

This is what the treaty says:

“Taking into account the elections to the European Parliament and after having held the appropriate consultations, the European Council, acting by a qualified majority, shall propose to the European Parliament a candidate for President of the Commission. This candidate shall be elected by the European Parliament by a majority of its component members.”

The European Council, is a regular meeting of EU leaders, and as the treaty makes clear, it has the prerogative to choose the candidate for the commission “taking into account” the outcome of the final vote on 25 May. Rarely in fact are European treaties so clear. MEPs then get a vote.

Ms Thorning-Schmidt is a Social Democrat and if the centre-left is the biggest group of MEPs, I predict her name could well go forward.

She is a woman (a big deal here in PC euroland), she used to be an MEP and knows the Brussels circuit well. If her name goes forward can anyone really imagine MEPs voting her down, or Mr Schulz demanding a No vote to topple her from the job?

Here's the clincher: can anyone imagine gender-quota loving MEPs voting down the first ever female president of the commission to impose a male spitzenkandidat? Never.

Ms Thorning-Schmidt was educated at the College of Europe (a second rate university for budding eurocrats in Bruges). Her career in the Brussels bubble, including five years as an MEP, has been as long as her rather disastrous one, from a Social Democrat point of view, in Denmark.

The European Union is planning to “own and operate” spy drones, surveillance satellites and aircraft as part of a new intelligence and security agency under the control of Baroness Ashton.

The controversial proposals are a major move towards creating an independent EU military body with its own equipment and operations, and will be strongly opposed by Britain.

Officials told the Daily Telegraph that the European Commission and Lady Ashton’s European External Action Service want to create military command and communication systems to be used by the EU for internal security and defence purposes. Under the proposals, purchasing plans will be drawn up by autumn.

The use of the new spy drones and satellites for “internal and external security policies”, which will include police intelligence, the internet, protection of external borders and maritime surveillance, will raise concerns that the EU is creating its own version of the US National Security Agency.

Senior European officials regard the plan as an urgent response to the recent scandal over American and British communications surveillance by creating EU’s own security and spying agency.

“The Edward Snowden scandal shows us that Europe needs its own autonomous security capabilities, this proposal is one step further towards European defence integration,” said a senior EU official.

The proposal said “the commission will work with the EEAS on a joint assessment of dual-use capability needs for EU security and defence policies”.

It continued: “On the basis of this assessment, it will come up with a proposal for which capability needs, if any, could best be fulfilled by assets directly purchased, owned and operated by the Union.” A commission official confirmed the proposal.

"Looking at the current gaps, possibilities could be from surveillance Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems to airlift and command and communication facilities," said the official.

There is a already an intense behind-the-scenes battle pitting London against the rest over plans to create an EU military operations headquarters in Brussels.

Lady Ashton, the European foreign minister, the commission and France – backed by Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland – all support the plans. Both sets of proposals are likely to come to a head at an EU summit fight in December.

“We would not support any activity that would mean the Commission owning or controlling specific defence research assets or capabilities,” said a British government spokesman.

Britain has a veto but the group of countries have threatened to use a legal mechanism, created by the Lisbon Treaty, to bypass the British and create a major rift in Nato.

Geoffrey Van Orden MEP, Conservative European defence and security spokesman, accused the commission of being “obsessed” with promoting the “EU’s military ambitions”.

“It would be alarming if the EU – opaque, unaccountable, bureaucratic and desperately trying to turn itself into a federal state – were to try and create an intelligence gathering capability of its own. This is something that we need to stop in its tracks before it is too late,” he said.

Nigel Farage MEP, the leader of Ukip, described the plans for EU spy drones and satellites as “a deeply sinister development”.

“These are very scary people, and these revelations should give any lover of liberty pause for thought over the ambitions of the EU elite.”

The Open Europe think tank has warned that the EU “has absolutely no democratic mandate for actively controlling and operating military and security capabilities”.

“The fact is European countries have different views on defence and this is best served by intergovernmental cooperation, not by European Commission attempts at nation-building,” said Pawel Swidlicki, a research analyst at Open Europe.

The spy drones and secure command systems would be linked to a £3.5 billion spy satellite project known as Copernicus which will be used to provide “imaging capabilities to support Common Security and Defence Policy missions and operations”. Currently Copernicus is due to be operated by the European Space Agency.

It is part of the Sentinel system of satellites, which is costing British taxpayers £434 million. Previously known as the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security project, which is due to become operational next year.